An imaginative explanation of the boy and the turtle

Albert B. Southwick

Sunday

Jun 3, 2007 at 1:02 AM

Has someone been disrespecting the Harriett Burnside fountain on the Common?

Ron Davis thinks so, and has provided me with material for a rebuttal to the crude insinuations that have been bruited about the sculpture, which features a boy astride a turtle in midflight. According to Artworks In Our Parks, an inventory of Worcester’s public memorials done a few years ago, “The boy holding the turtle, his hair flying, a sly smile on his face, is charming and disarming.”

But when Worcester Magazine asked a number of passers-by what the Turtle Boy was up to, some comments were a bit on the crude side. One said that “I don’t think it represents Worcester at all,” which suggests that she thought it somehow unfitting to be on public display.

Well, that idea would have distressed Harriett P.F. Burnside, the wealthy, proper matron who in 1905 donated $5,000 to the city for a fountain and sculpture. The fountain and water trough was for the benefit of thirsty horses. There were plenty of them on Worcester streets in 1905, but not so many in 1912, when the work was at last unveiled. The fountain originally was across the street, but was moved to its current site in 1969 to make way for the big reconstruction.

Shortly after that move, vandals struck. Worcester awoke one morning in April 1970 to discover that the bronze figures had been lifted off the stone fountain and had vanished. And vanished they were for several months. In September they reappeared, just as mysteriously. It was said that the Worcester police had agreed not to prosecute whoever was responsible.

And then, three years ago, someone was at it again. The Boy and the Turtle were pried off their perch and left in a precarious position atop the fountain. But no great damage was done and they were shortly put back into shape.

The Harriett Burnside fountain deserves respect. Although I don’t know who dreamed up the idea of the rampant turtle, the bronze figures were done by Charles Harvey and Sherry Fry under the supervision of Daniel Chester French. Henry Bacon did the pedestal. Even if its original purpose has gone with the buggy whip, it is a familiar sight to generations of Worcesterites and a quaint comment on an era that has vanished.

Ron Davis, long with Davis Press, has unearthed an interesting item about the Burnside fountain. Many years ago, Margaret Getchell, daughter of a noted Worcester physician, wrote a children’s book of eight chapters, each of them linked to a Worcester landmark. I knew Margaret years later, when she was Mrs. Parsons and a feature writer for the Telegram. But I was unaware of her book, “The Cloud Bird.” It was published by Davis Press.

Chapter 8, “The Adventurer in Armor,” deals with Dorothy Ann’s experience with the Turtle Boy. She is sure that he is an Armed Adventurer and when she approaches him she sees that he is struggling to hold the Turtle in place:

“ ‘I can’t hold him back much longer,’ said the boy as soon as he spied Dorothy Ann. ‘I have held him all day, and the strain has been worse than usual so that my strength is almost gone.’

“ ‘Where does he want to go?’ asks Dorothy Ann.

“ ‘Oh, he is a great adventurer. See, he is girding up his armor now.’ ”

The boy, it turns out, is really a faun, “a child of the woods.” He had agreed to come to Salem Square, Worcester, to help keep the Turtle in check. Dorothy likens him to Peter Pan, but he says he never was a human baby like Peter Pan.

The faun persuades Dorothy Ann to climb onto the back of the Turtle and in a trice they are off on a scary adventure:

“Down the street ran the Turtle, which had now grown quite enormous, all four legs going so fast you could barely see them.

“Just then Dorothy looked up and saw they were almost at the ocean. Ahead of them was a high rock cliff, up which the Turtle moved faster when he saw the cool water so near ... . Dorothy Ann caught her breath as the Turtle leapt off the cliff and went flying through the air. They struck the water with a splash and sank way down into the green regions below. After a few seconds they came up again and the Turtle, with Dorothy Ann and the Boy still clinging to his armor, went swimming back to the shore.”

After an afternoon sporting in the water, the Boy said that it was time to go back to Salem Square, so they returned. But Dorothy Ann could hardly wait to tell her mother about her great adventure.

So there you go. It is plain that the Burnside fountain is something more than an obsolete horse trough. Given a bit of imagination we can see that it is a magical item, open to all sorts of exciting adventures. A faun, an armored turtle rampant, a little girl on his back flying breathlessly through the air and plunging into the ocean.